Rotation plays a role in the generation of magnetic fields in single white dwarfs

Abstract

Recent surveys of close white dwarf binaries as well as single white dwarfs have provided evidence for the late appearance of magnetic fields in white dwarfs, and a possible generation mechanism a crystallization and rotation-driven dynamo has been suggested. A key prediction of this dynamo is that magnetic white dwarfs rotate, at least on average, faster than their non-magnetic counterparts and/or that the magnetic field strength increases with rotation. Here we present rotation periods of ten white dwarfs within 40 pc measured using photometric variations. Eight of the light curves come from TESS observations and are thus not biased towards short periods, in contrast to most period estimates that have been reported previously in the literature. These TESS spin periods are indeed systematically shorter than those of non-magnetic white dwarfs. This means that the crystallization and rotation-driven dynamo could be responsible for a fraction of the magnetic fields in white dwarfs. However, the full sample of magnetic white dwarfs also contains slowly rotating strongly magnetic white dwarfs which indicates that another mechanism that leads to the late appearance of magnetic white dwarfs might be at work, either in addition to or instead of the dynamo. The fast-spinning and massive magnetic white dwarfs that appear in the literature form a small fraction of magnetic white dwarfs, and probably result from a channel related to white dwarf mergers.